Universal Sports, Telemundo Land Rights To Soccer Qualifiers For London Games

Universal Sports Network and Telemundo have purchased the media rights for the men's and women’s '12 CONCACAF Olympic qualifying soccer tournaments. Terms of the deal were not available. The women’s tournament runs January 19-29 in Vancouver and the men’s tournament runs March 22-April 2 in K.C. and Carson, Calif. The men’s tournament features competition between Mexico, the U.S., Canada, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama and two Carribean teams which have yet to be named. The women’s tournament features teams from the U.S., Mexico, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba and Haiti. The top two men’s and women’s teams qualify for the '12 London Games. Telemundo owns the Spanish-language rights, excluding CONCACAF’s co-exclusive website rights on concacaf.com and radio. It will televise all 15 men’s matches and a to-be-determined number of women’s matches. Universal owns the English-language broadcast rights to all U.S. matches as well as the finals from each of the two tournaments. A Universal Sports rep said the network would finalize its programming for the women’s tournament after the new year. Universal Sports declined to discuss the value of the rights.